Posted
by
Soulskillon Friday August 22, 2014 @01:51PM
from the pretty-pictures dept.

schwit1 writes: Using restored images taken by Voyager 2 when it flew past Neptune's moon Triton 25 years ago, scientists have produced a new map and flyby movie of the moon. "The new Triton map has a resolution of 1,970 feet (600 meters) per pixel. The colors have been enhanced to bring out contrast but are a close approximation to Triton's natural colors. Voyager's "eyes" saw in colors slightly different from human eyes, and this map was produced using orange, green and blue filter images. ... Although Triton is a moon of a planet and Pluto is a dwarf planet, Triton serves as a preview of sorts for the upcoming Pluto encounter. Although both bodies originated in the outer solar system, Triton was captured by Neptune and has undergone a radically different thermal history than Pluto. Tidal heating has likely melted the interior of Triton, producing the volcanoes, fractures and other geological features that Voyager saw on that bitterly cold, icy surface. Pluto is unlikely to be a copy of Triton, but some of the same types of features may be present." Dr. Paul Schenk provides provides further information on his blog, and the movie can be viewed here.

Considering it was made with 25 year old footage, it was probably one of the cheapest movies ever made.

The U.S. spends $324 billion dollars a year on entertainment*. tThe cost of the Voyager II program ($865 million dollars*) over 40 years is equal to about 22 millon dollars per year. A drop in the bucket. The Pioneer and Voyager missions have spawned an entire cottage industry of "science-based edutainment shows" on TV like "Through the Wormhole" and "Cosmos". That program has

This video just reminds me a lot of SpaceEngine. It's a fantastic, free Windows program that lets you fly to different moons/planets/stars/galaxies and even build your own worlds.
en.spaceengine.org
Thought some of you might be interested.

I gotta agree. I mean, we know that they just made a sphere and mapped the photos onto it as a texture, but I would have preferred them to use either no star map or whatever was visible in the real photos.

NASA doing crappy CGI just makes it harder to convince people of the real stuff.

The summary mentions that Triton used to be a dwarf planet, in its own orbit, but was captured by Neptune. The reason we believe this, is because Triton orbits in the wrong direction. No other large moon in the solar system has a retrograde orbit. If it formed from the same dust cloud as the planet it orbits, or formed from other orbiting debris (as Luna did after Earth's collision with Theia [wikipedia.org]), then it would orbit in the same direction. It is also one of the few moons with a detectable atmosphere (mostly nitrogen), and also one of only a few with geologic activity, including liquid nitrogen geysers. About a third of its mass is water, although all is believed to be frozen.